Why Marijuana Could Make You a Better Marathon Runner

The famed “runner’s high” is complemented by the effect of cannabis on your brain.

9 months ago

Josiah Hesse was not always a marathon runner. Until the age of thirty, he says, he was the “least athletic person imaginable.” But then he started loading up on cannabis chocolates and running through Denver, tackling steep hills and distances he’d never dreamed. Being stoned somehow turned him into a unstoppable runner. But he also later realized that his compulsion for running while high was getting dangerous

Hesse writes in Esquire that he first turned to the sport when he was a freelance journalist in Denver, writing reviews about weed products in Colorado’s blossoming recreational marijuana industry. He knew nothing about the science behind the drug or that there was an underground trend of athletes using weed in their training. He writes that recent studies show that the natural “runner’s high” long distance runners talk about is linked to the brain’s endocannabinoid system, and not endorphins, as previously thought, which means that running and cannabis have complementary effects. But then, running while stoned became Heese’s answer to everything. He writes that the ceaseless hunger to take things one step further started to cost him, and he realized that he’d been pushing too hard for too long.